IN THE WAKE OF "THE MAGGIE"
"The Maggie", made in 1954, is in many ways superior to the later, BBC-made, televisioncomedies about Para Handy and the "Vital Spark", these largely studio-based and much of "The Maggie" shot on location in and around Glasgow, Greenock, Crinan and Islay, twolocation sequences shot on Kintyre's 'West Road' and, for purely 'scenic reasons', showingthe hapless American being driven south to Campbeltown, instead of, as is supposedly theplot, from Campbeltown to The Crinan Canal.1
The shot here, taken between Whitehouse and Clachan and looking back to West Loch Tarbert, had often appeared in Shell's motoring guides and calendars from the 1930'sonwards and would not have worked so well in film terms if it had been shot to show the backof the car, an Austin, heading 'over the horizon', towards Crinan. The second Kintyre shot shows the car on 'The West Road', again heading south forCampbeltown, instead of north for Crinan, it taken just south of Tangy's road end, near'Todd's Turn' and is the only remaining photograph thought now to show, on the seaward sideof the road, the World War II road block post's 'hut', the road block itself reportedly only butoccasionally manned over the course of the war years, it easily by-passed by the Tangy 'loop'if anyone with local knowledge was so-minded and the only really effective road block, thenand even now, some 40 miles north, outside Ardrishaig's 'Royal Hotel', it today 'The GreyGull Inn' and Kintyre's only other road block at Kildonan, north of Peninver, on theCampbeltown to Carradale road.2
Calvin B. Marshall was of course the somewhat brash, impetuous and quite luckless Americantycoon whose material sacrifice was rewarded when his name was bestowed on one of Scotland’s well-remembered and famous but fictional ships, a puffer, the
“Maggie”
. The whimsical story was written by William Rose, he too wrote the script for
“Genevieve”
. The music for
“The Maggie”
was written by John Addison who composed the music for thepopular Angela Lansbury
“Murder She Wrote”
television series, the concertina played byWillie Smith, well known for his playing skills in the Clyde Steamer bands, sometimes on the"
Duchess of Montrose
", his career recorded online athttp://www.scribd.com/doc/1414895/Concertina-Clyde-Steamers-Willie-Smith-Greenock-Photos-Music The 1953 Ealing comedy film
“The Maggie”
is sometimes described as a wicked little satireon the mutual contempt that even today underlies Euro-American relations and in many waysthe seemingly leisurely, gentle-humoured and happily-concluded tale is indeed somewhatcruel rather than quaint.Enter Calvin B. Marshall
(Paul Douglas)
as the American airways tycoon who's building a newhouse on a Hebridean island and needs some building supplies delivered fast so that the jobcan be finished in time for his anniversary. Enter Captain MacTaggart
(played by former Kirkintilloch school-master Alex Mackenzie)
and the crew of the
“Maggie”
, her part played by John Hay & Sons' puffers
“Boer”
and
“Inca”
, both broken up in 1965.Alex Mackenzie, born in 1885, was a regular visitor to Carradale's Golf Course, he oftenplaying there with the late Colin Oman and their last round together just three weeks or sobefore Mackenzie died, in December 1965.3
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In the Wake of The Maggie
"The Maggie", made in 1954, is in many ways superior to the later, BBC-made, television comedies about Para Handy and the "Vital Spark", these largely studio-based and much of "The Maggie" shot on location in and…
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